Mining Cryptocurrencies

[Diddums 4,305]

Ok, for those of you who looked at the title and went "what the fuck is that?", a Cryptocurrency is a form of currency that only exists in computers. The most famous of these is Bitcoin, which started off being traded on sites like Sil Road for people to buy drugs and weapons. I mined a few back then, I had about 6 or 7 at one point but never saw it going anywhere so I sold them for $10 a pop at the time.

 

As of today, they're just shy of $1000 each.

 

My previous graphics card, the 6950 was a monster for mining. For some reason, the algorithms used for this kind of thing seem to favour AMD cards hugely. Anywho, for Bitcoins I was mining at approx 315mhash/second, but I'll be lucky to get a third of that with my GTX 770, which tears the 6950 to pieces in gaming.

 

I'm going to start off with Litecoins, and mine as much as I can. I'll then use the coins I mine to buy new hardware, and combined with some bits and bobs I have at home, build up a dedicated system for mining.

 

If you're interested in this at all, respond to this thread and I'll answer as best I can.

 

This is more of a personal progress report to see how it goes, but I thought I'd stick it in here in case there are others interested in it too.

[Chookes 965]

Will it make me a millionaire?

Some guy threw away an old drive with 7,500 bitcoins he was given in 2009 .

[Harrison 202]

^Saw that, werent it worth a few mil?

[Diddums 4,305]

4mil.

 

 

Obviously that was all accumulated when everyone was still laughing at this new kind of sorcery which would never take off, but still, there's money to be made. Not much, but as a hobby, it's great fun.

 

Tommy's GPU would be awesome for mining

[Plumbers Crack 4,033]

I see the ad-bots are interested too......web mining software!

[BO7H B4RRELS 2,447]

4mil.

 

 

Obviously that was all accumulated when everyone was still laughing at this new kind of sorcery which would never take off, but still, there's money to be made. Not much, but as a hobby, it's great fun.

 

Tommy's GPU would be awesome for mining

I'm completely lost in all of this, but I'm interested  

[Diddums 4,305]

Well, according to this, people are geting between 340 and 411mhash/s with a 7850. That's not bad. All you need to do is figure out your energy prices and run some numbers, to see if you'll make a profit.

 

I just remembered I've got 0,05 BTC in my wallet, which is about £25. I'll probably use that to buy a few litecoins, as they've gone from approx. $14 to $33 over the last couple of months, and they don't seem to be stopping any time soon.

 

This is of course a game and shouldn't be taken seriously, but if you make a buck or two, it's a bonus, right?

 

Tommy watch this:

 

[Madjonny 386]

What exactly do you mean by mining? Should I just watch that video?

[Diddums 4,305]

[JBR-Kiwi 286]

Ive been very interested in BitCoins and the mining process for a while now but when thing ive heard is that if you run a dedicated couple of mining rigs solely to 'mine', your energy bills can go through the roof.

 

Is that true?

[Diddums 4,305]

It depends on how hardcore your rig is. 

 

The best solution is a shitty single core processor, as many GPUs as you can cram into it, and a monitor that you hardly ever turn on, and just let it do its thing. Of course if you can take it to work or something and "borrow" some leccy, it'll save you that cost entirely. 

 

Obviously certain GPUs are better for this than others. For example, my old 6950 was half the gaming grunt of my new GTX 770, but it got 340m/hash per second, whereas this 770 gets just shy of 200. A 7950 gets around 600, and is the best bang per watt. 

 

I'm currently mining too, I'll keep tabs on things and report back once I've got some solid numbers.

 

Also, Bitcoin is largely useless atm, as there are people with machine that cost tens of thousands who you are competing against. I'm mining Litecoins, could be the next Bitcoin, but of course it could not. Time will tell. 

[Chookes 965]

I'll let you invest in Euan Bucks as well. They could be next dollar in my opinion.

[tronic44 3,628]

There was massive money to be made from all this if you start a couple of years ago but now it takes a lot longer to farm a single bitcoin even though the price of a bitcoin goes up with every one made.

 

The idea is simple, as in how they're farmed and how the system works but you just had to have the balls to go through with it. The ideal scenario is that you could plug it in where you work, where i work they wouldn't even noticed the difference in bills at the end of the month but you certainly will if you do it from home.

 

Like Dave says, it's a pretty fun hobby and if you can make a few p's outa it then fair play. My local pub started dealing in bitcions earlier this year

 

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/shortcuts/2013/jun/23/britains-first-bitcoin-pub

 

and there is a bitcoin machine, which is like a cash machine, that has opened up in Vancouver (hmmm i wonder why?)

 

http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2013/10/robocoin_here/

 

Also as Dave says, the will be people out there with machines that are made to mine at insane speeds

 

 

So Dave, you just mine by using you graphics card? Have you seen the price of some of the mining hardware you can buy? You can pay close to $7,000 and be getting around 400,000 mhash/s! Although there is a cheaper one which is coming out that's only 350 watts and can get around around 600,000 mhash/s. The 400,000 machine is 1000 watts! That's going to show up on your bill lol 

 

http://www.bitcoinx.com/bitcoin-mining-hardware/

 

But yeah, i love all this stuff

[spectre 633]

I'm confused why it makes your energy bills go through the roof.

[Diddums 4,305]

I'm confused why it makes your energy bills go through the roof.

 

Because you're running a graphics card at 100% load all the time. Having said that, I unloaded all my coins and bought an MSI R9 290 Gaming Edition. It gets almost triple what I was getting with my 770. I did at one point have both cards singing in harmony in my system, but the 770 was hitting 96deg. on the chip. Not healthy. 

 

I've undervolted the 290 slightly to reduce the heat and consumption, and I'm still getting about 860k/hash per second, whereas the 770 wouldn't go over 330 no matter what I tried.

 

I also have a script which trades automatically for me, and makes a little bit of profit every time it kicks in. It runs every 5 minutes and takes transaction fees into account so unless there's enough of a gap in the market to make a profit, it remains dormant. This morning, it made a few trades which put me 0.01BTC in profit, which as of right now is about $10. Not bad for a bit of software code which I don't touch. 

 

I will say that this is a hobby. It's not a case of plug in and get money, it requires some time and dedication to set it all up, and that's assuming you have the necessary kit. Once it's running however, it's pretty much cash in the bank. My new graphics card cost me nothing, although I did pay for the electricity out of my regular bank account. 

 

As it stands right now, I'm making about £60 a month in profit after my electric is paid. 

 

The whole cryptocurrency scene is booming and very interesting but don't expect to hop in and go. It takes tons of research, tons of time, and tons of patience. I'm at the point now where I can fire up my miner and run a profit immediately, but it's taken me almost two months to hit this point. 

 

It's great fun. I really enjoy doing this. 

 

If anyone has any questions please ask, I'll explain the answers as best I can. 

[Chookes 965]

Did the value of the bitcoin not half recently?

[spectre 633]

Did the value of the bitcoin not half recently?

 

Yes, there was a decline but it went back up I believe because of overstock.com allowing people to use it for transactions and bitcoin ATM's are popping up. I'm still skeptical about Bitcoin though. I think it is part of the New World Order plan to have a one world digital currency in which you must have an RFID chip implanted in your hand for you to use it to make transactions. If you recall, you know that whole, Mark of the Beast scenario from the Bible.

 

I am purely just being skeptical here, yes the above is certainly a possibility so who knows what is going on. I know one thing though, the Money Changers, who have a monopoly over the world money supply, wouldn't let Saddam Trade oil in gold so we invaded their country and swiftly changed the oil being sold back to dollars.  I know we also took out Kadafi in Libya for the same reason.  So the question you should ask yourself is, "Why would the Monopoly Men allow a new currency to emerge that isn't being regulated or taxed unless they have something to do with it? And in the meantime, they are collapsing the dollar month after month"

 

But don't take my word for it, do your own research. You should start with the documentary/speech "All wars are banker wars", easily found on youtube.

 

[Diddums 4,305]

The whole point of Bitcoin is to get away from the current banking system, not pander to it. There are also about 40 different cryptos available, which can all be mined and traded, all hopig to steal a piece of the Bitcoin pie. Some are silly, some are scams, and some are actually trying to be successful. These aren't governed by some secret order, lizard men or the illuminati. These are currencies which are started up by average joes like you and me. There is a reason why banks and governments are against the crypto revolution, and why some banks are trying to put a patent on them so they can take charge and regulate them.

 

The price of Bitcoin is fairly stable at the moment which is irritating because I trade them. I expect them to go up and down by factor of 5 so I can make massive amounts of them. Bloody things.

 

I honestly believe that this is the future, and I honestly hope it's going to make me rich.

[Chookes 965]

The real quesiton is, will the bitcoin make me lose my job?

 

You might make my first kid homeless Dave.

[Diddums 4,305]

He'll be Scottish and ginger, homeless is the least of his worries.

[spectre 633]

I'm just saying Dave, I don't trust it. Hopefully you're right.  You didn't have to bring Illuminati and Lizardmen into the equation though. I'm not that crazy, lmao.

[Chookes 965]

Dave, I was going to call him after you, ya prick, but not now.

 

"Diddums Morrison", they'll never let me return that customised baby-grow now.

[Diddums 4,305]

I'm just saying Dave, I don't trust it. Hopefully you're right.  You didn't have to bring Illuminati and Lizardmen into the equation though. I'm not that crazy, lmao.

 

 

Nah, I get your point and I often read your posts and they really get me thinking, but even if Bitcoin was started by Them, it's not having the effect they want because it's spawned too many unregulated currencies.

[spectre 633]

Where do you see this thing going? You say there are 40 different types, how does one become "trustworthy" to a society. That's the only thing that keeps money and currency alive, is faith in its value. Gold/Silver have a long history of retaining value so in my eyes, they are the only thing that can be considered "Real Money" - everything else is only temporary until something else comes along that the people believe in.

[Diddums 4,305]

Well that's the million dollar question. This is my view on things:

 

It's going to take off. Not as a currency, but as a payment system. Instead of linking bank accounts and paying for stuff with credit or debit cards online, you will be able to buy Bitcoins and use that, a bit like vouchers. The value of the Bitcoin is determined by demand. I see the Bitcoin as the gold or silver. It's not a substitute for something of value, it is the something of value.

 

It's getting accepted more and more and will continue to do so. So far the largest retailer to accept Bitcoins is Overstock.com. Their sales skyrocketed in the first 24 hours, taking $130k in Bitcoin sales alone. There are loads of smaller or even much more extravagant things you can buy with Bitcoin. You can book a space flight with Virgin and pay for it with Bitcoin. Zynga, the company behind big hitting casual games like Farmville and half the stuff on the Apple store, has started testing accepting Bitcoins. You can pay for college with Bitcoin. You can go to an ATM and withdraw Bitcoin, go to a pub and buy a beer, and have a meal on the way home, all paid for by Bitcoin. You can even buy a house with Bitcoin.

 

Obviously I'm making it sound like you can pay with it everywhere, when the fact is that you can't, simple as that. In order to carry out the scenario mentioned above, your choices of where to go, what to eat and drink and what town it'd be in are extremely limited, but it's happening. Every day more and more small establishments are accepting Bitcoin. It's happening, right now. Hell, two days ago a company announced that you can pay your taxes with Bitcoin.

 

There are ATMs available, and some have been installed are are functional already. Canada has one. New York is getting one. Hong Kong and Taiwan are following suit. Australia. Israel. Loads more.

 

China put a stop to as much as they can for good reason - the Chinese government only allows you to take x amount of their currency out of the country, and people were circumventing this by buying Bitcoins, sending them abroad and then selling them again. It is an unregulated and incredibly difficult to trace manner of transferring funds across borders without any tax or revenue implications. It has a huge underground following for this reason, and Bitcoins in China have hit $1k again despite the government's efforts.

 

Similar thing with India. The locals have lost faith in their own rupees so they are using Bitcoin to pay for things. Zimbabwe... well, that speaks for itself. It's not just an alternative, in many places it's a solution. It's not going to die. It can't. There are people depending on it now and the governments know this. They also know that Bitcoin is a contributor towards their GDP. Not much, but if they outlawed the whole system the effects would be noticeable.

 

This is an interesting read: What is a Bitcoin really worth in China and India?

 

We're past the point of no return. This is the next thing and I get called all sorts of things for believing it it, but I just remind myself of the reactions I used to get when I told people that you could send a letter electronically from one computer to another - and look at email today.

 

One thing I'm still struggling to get my head around is the whole Litecoin thing. It's basically accepted amongst the community that Litecoin is the Silver to Bitcoin's Gold. That would make sense, if it wasn't for the fact that Bitcoins can be split up into "satoshis", which are 0.00000001 BTC.

 

The number of coins is finite, and that's where Litecoin might come in. Once Bitcoins are more widely accepted there value will shoot through the roof as there simply won't be enough to go around. Some people believe that one Bitcoin is going to hit $100k. I think they're being optimistic but sooner or later the US government is going to release a statement that they've discussed how to regulate and tax bitcoins, people will start having more faith in them, companies will start accepting them and the value will jump. I'm not talking about a few dollars per coin, I can see them hitting $10k easily.

 

The UK's IRS, called HMRC over here, has already decided that Bitcoin is a private currency and will have laws applied to it.

 

People are really starting to sit up and take this seriously. Some are optimistic, some are pessimistic, and some feel threatened. JPMorgan even applied for a patent for exactly what a Bitcoin is. This is the only article I can find on it, since JPM said that they were in no way inspired by Bitcoin, all the articles seem to have disappeared, but this was a news report on some very reputable pages, including the New York Times if I remember correctly.

 

I'll leave it at that for now, but f you have any questions, fire away!